Covid

Dominic Cummings’s main concern as he appears in front of MPs is to identify the failures of government and ensure everyone knows they weren’t his failures, but those of the fools who refused to listen to him. It’s rather a tragic final act, for the truth is that Cummings did fail (and, to be fair, he has admitted some of his failings in front of the committee). Not so much as regards the pandemic (although given his influence, it is hard not to assign some culpability to him) but in his stated desire to improve the overall performance of government. For those of us who admired his intellect, his drive and his

I am bemused by Boris Johnson’s optimism about the prospects for full unlocking on 21 June, based on the data he says he is seeing. Because the government’s own daily published data is showing worrying trends for the Indian variant. For example, there were 280 Covid infections reported for Bolton alone yesterday, 10 per cent of the UK total, and as you can see here the trend is steeply upward: That would be less worrying if there was also a steep rise in Covid testing in Bolton. But there isn’t. As you can see here, the ratio of positive test results to tests carried out in Bolton – the positivity

While the Indian variant continues to dominate the headlines, India itself seems to have dropped out of the news a bit. What is going on there?  It was reported yesterday that India notched up a record number of Covid deaths on Tuesday – 4525 – which indeed was the record of any country during the pandemic. However, that number needs to be put in the context of the country’s population of 1.3 billion. Grim as it is, it works out at 3.5 deaths per million. This is a fraction of the 27.6 deaths per million recorded in Britain on 20 January 2021. Tuesday’s figure is likely to be the high

How well does prior exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus protect you against reinfection? It has been a hotly-debated subject since the first trickle of reported cases of reinfection with the virus began to be reported last spring. Now, a study involving 16,000 students from South Carolina has attempted to quantify the protective effect of natural infection. The students involved in the study, which is published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, were each swabbed for a PCR test last autumn, as a condition of being allowed to return to campus. They were swabbed again this spring in similar circumstances.  Out of 16,101 students, 2,021 were found to be infected in

Here are two Covid questions, thrown up by the rate at which the Indian variant is infecting parts of the UK. First, does it show that the traffic light system, which was designed to prevent the UK from importing new strains and variants from abroad, is unfit for purpose? The delay of one to two weeks in moving India from the amber to red category – which I’ve been banging on about for a month – is relevant, and looks like a serious government mistake. But isn’t there a more fundamental flaw in the system? Ministers keep pointing out that with India in the amber category the UK should have

That vast battalion of pinko pundits who confidently expected Boris Johnson to get a drubbing in last week’s elections has already reached a consensus on why it is that he did so well and Keir Starmer so badly. To summarise: the Prime Minister is a lucky general who benefited from a ‘vaccine bounce’. He will fall straight back down to earth once this current crisis is over. The electorate will soon start concentrating on what really matters, like the cost of his curtains. In the long list of reasons why Labour keeps losing, its tendency to underestimate and misunderstand its opponents should figure large. Because the truth of the matter is that

There have been some truly dystopian spectacles during the past year-or-so of lockdowns. Cops using drones to spy on dog-walkers. Park benches sealed off with yellow tape. Curtain-twitchers dialling 999 after seeing the bloke next door go for a cheeky second jog. But this headline surely tops all of that: ‘Hugs will finally be legal again from next Monday.’ Read that again. We live in a country in which the government has accrued so much power that it now gets to tell us when we may hug each other. This should send a chill down the spines of all who care for liberty. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware

Seldom have so many keyboard warriors and political activists professed so much dissatisfaction towards the government of the day. For some left-wing bloggers and tweeters, the number one cause of outrage of the moment is so-called ‘Tory sleaze’, a subject to be added to an already formidably long list of gripes towards Boris Johnson that includes Brexit, the claim that Britain is not very racist and his alleged unforgivable bungling of the Covid crisis. On the right, there is now, if anything, an even wider array of issues igniting fury towards the Prime Minister. These range from the ongoing suspensions of normal civil liberties to an allegedly ‘ruinous’ green agenda; from

Steerpike finally got his hands this week on a copy of Failures of State by the Sunday Times Insight duo Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott about Britain’s experience of Covid. While not exactly a barrel of laughs, Mr S did enjoy one contribution from SAGE member Susan Michie, professor of health psychology at University College London and a Communist party member of 40 years. Reflecting on the decision to allow Cheltenham racing festival to go ahead in March 2020, Michie told the authors: I thought Cheltenham should definitely not have been allowed to go ahead. I remember looking at the television images of what was happening there and feeling slightly nauseous about it, just feeling: ‘God, this